The Russian occupation force took removed the commemorative plaque for Vasyl Stus (1938–1985) at Donetsk University. Stus was a Ukrainian poet and publicist, one of the most active members of Ukrainian dissident movement. For his political convictions, his works were banned by the Soviet regime and he died in Gorbachev-era GULAG. (Image: Larysa Lysiak)

Article by: A. N.

Exposed bricks, that’s all that remains in place of the commemorative plaque to one of the bravest people that ever lived in Donetsk. The Russian occupation force cowardly took it down. The plaque attached to the facade of Donetsk University was honoring one of its graduates, the major Ukrainian poet and Soviet dissident Vasyl Stus.

Stus never took an easy path. His love for Ukraine, his literary talent and inextinguishable sense of justice made it impossible for him to be silent about the suppression of human rights and everything Ukrainian under the Communist rule. Through his poetry and activity in the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, he fought the totalitarian state, but the fight was unequal. He died at the age of 47, while serving the fifth year of a 10-year sentence on charges of “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” in a GULAG mine six months after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR.

Weep, sky, weep and weep! Wash the unabated seaOf thin-voiced waters and dampen the heart.It seems it was just now, just yesterdayThat a deathly shiver buried you alive.Weep, sky, weep and weep! The past cannot be returned.Today has been reduced to naught, the future will not come.Something weighs on the mind that can neverBe torn from the heart. This prison is a prison for prisons!Weep, sky, weep and weep! Still over your horizonsAnd let the stars fall from darkened skies!Is there in this world a trumpet that will soundA final blast to keep me from my resurrection?Flow, water, flaw and sweep me away from my weariness,For eternities of bondage have crushed me.High upland thunder, girdle the earth!Pitch-winged cloud, bless me!Lightning, send a message!Hallowed be the world. The night is its companion.So, water. Flow forth! And you, misfortune, rage!

– Vasyl Stus

(Translated by Marco Carynnyk, The Ukrainian Weekly, September 15, 1985, p. 10., taken from article by Dr. Wolodymyr Zyla published online)

The plaque to Vasyl Stus before it was taken down by the Russian occupation force (Image: Yakudza, wikipedia.org)

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What low lifes did this to a poet who died in the Gulag? How much lower can they go?

John Shirley

Well if you take a look at Putin, I’d say about 5’4″ with shoe lifts. Of course I’ve heard he is much lower when he is on his knees around little boys.

Marko

Russian golden horde barbarians. The ebola of the World. The Scum of the Earth.

Randall Cook

ruskis are barbaric vermin; and should be treated that way. Their western moral-supporters should be executed. Or deported to ruSSland with the other nazis there.

Dirk Smith

Subhumans. ISIS, Taliban, Putinists.

Borys Potytorsky

the ruSSians have shown the world ONCE again who they really are, nothing but asiatic DNA defected barbarians. no class just animals

canuke

Cowards!

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The ethnic russians were doing this in Eastern Ukraine even before the NAZI/russian invasion of 2014-
Most new post-1991 monuments or plaques to Ukrainian culture were immediately smashed and destroyed with sledge hammers and Ukrainians furthering their own cultural identity were regularly beaten almost to death or murdered… the ethnic russian police looked on approvingly…such is the russian racist genocidal anti UKRAINIAN mania..

Jack McColley

You must understand. They are only correcting historical errors. According to Putinology, this poet never existed. Ukraine is pulling down all statues of the communist gods, and so Putin will do the same for Ukrainian false heroes. Soon, there will be no history at all for either side in this conflict. All will be obliterated. In fact, it is said all Ukrainians will be shipped to Siberia where there is no population, and all of what was Ukraine will be a vast buffer to keep European homosexuals and other perverts out. This will be accomplished by removing the dome at Chernobyl. Long live mother Russia. She may be a whore, but she’s our mother, and we love her.

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